The Story Begins

Designing and building a home has been a dream of ours for the longest time. Not just a house, but a home where we feel comfortable, a place that fits our lifestyle, matches our ideals and simply works for us, and not the other way around.

I am not sure exactly when this desire started, so it must have been a long, long time ago...

For example, we had looked at a building lot in Hinesburg already in 2004. For various reasons, this did not work out. We decided to wait and the timeline ALWAYS seemed to be 5 or 10 years out. 

Building Lot in Hinesburg, August 2004

But when I worked as a freelance photographer for AirBnB in summer of  2012 and had the chance to see many nice homes in beautiful country settings, waiting even a few more years was not satisfying any more. Something had to be done about it. Now!

Building a custom home from scratch sounded like an expensive process. So besides casually looking at building lots, we also considered pre-loved homes that were for sale. We were very picky and only selected a few listings that sounded like a perfect match for us on paper. But when we actually looked at them, nothing seemed good enough. Not even the 80-10-10 rule as proposed by an agent was working for us (80% matches your preferences, 10% can be adjusted and 10% you just have to live with). We soon realized that the custom home route was the only way that would satisfy us. And so the quest for a "building lot that made our heart sing" started...

Almost everyone was telling us that building a house is a most stressful process, filled with a lot of conflicts between owner, builder, architect and all the other contractors. Supposedly nothing turns out exactly the way you had planned and you will certainly exceed your budget big time. So much for the theory.

We decided to approach this with enough planning time, enthusiasm, positive attitude and a certain degree of flexibility and try to make the best of it. We'll see in the end how this turns out. Wish us the best for this adventure!

We started this blog to document the planning, design and building process to share the experience with family and friends. We hope that you will join us in this journey.